I'm tired of hearing people complaining about the Gamepad, so this is gonna be a long one. Feel free to ignore, and have a nice day. : )
The problem with the Gamepad or the Wii U has nothing to do with the Gamepad or the Wii U themselves (one could argue that the Wii U isn't powerful enough, but that's an argument for another day). Aside from the lack of analog triggers (which honestly is not a big deal as far as I'm concerned), the Gamepad is empirically the best controller ever made. People are obviously going to want to argue with this. People are going to say that it's just my opinion, etc., but it's a provable fact. It has more features than any other controller ever made, and it didn't take away any features to accomplish this (once again, except for the odd exclusion of analog triggers). In a pure comparison of what a controller can and cannot do, the Wii U Gamepad wins hands down. The only reason anyone should consider it a lesser controller than what we've been given so far is that they find it uncomfortable. That's a possibility for sure, and I won't say that everyonewho finds it uncomfortable is lying (of which I've only seen a small few, by the way), but gamers will whine about the most minute things that any cries of extreme discomfort or a horrible, unusable button layout will obvious be met by skepticism by me. But I digress.
People didn't have a problem with the Wiimote because it had motion controls, people had a problem with it because it added motion controls and took away many of the things we were used to, and in many cases, needed. It didn't have two analog sticks, it didn't have 4 face buttons, it didn't have 4 shoulder buttons. Because of these limitations, games had to work around them using motion controls in bad ways, rather than enhancing games by using motion controls only when they're useful. If, somehow, the Wiimote had added motion controls while preserving all the tried and true controls we knew before, then developers wouldn't be limited like they were. They would have motion controls AND everything else (Once again, there was also the problem with the Wii's power, but I'm only taking about controls right now). So now we have the Gamepad. It corrects these problems. Just like older controllers added without taking away, so does the Gamepad. The SNES controller added extra face buttons and shoulder buttons without taking away, and now those things are standards in the industry. If that wasn't a bad thing to do then, how could adding a touchscreen (without taking things away) be a bad thing now? How could this be anything other than the natural evolution of the standard controller? Gamer's perception, that's how.
The bad thing is only (ONLY) in how Nintendo has marketed it, and how that type of marketing affects the mindset of developers and gamers. Because that's the "hook" of the console, developers are going to feel like they have to utilize the touchscreen in every game, even when it doesn't make sense. And gamers will feel cheated if the touchscreen isn't utilized in interesting and useful ways. If it doesn't revolutionize, people will look at it and say "What's the pont?" It's a lose, lose simply because of people's attitudes surrounding it.
The solution? As obvious and clichéd as it is to say... it's the games! (I know, crazy, right?) When the 3DS came out, the fact that it did glasses free 3D was supposed to be a big deal. Just like people are saying that the second screen is the reason to buy a Wii U, 3D was supposed to be the reason to buy a 3DS. That was the only thing that made it stand out when it was released. Look how completely untrue that is now. Whenever people talk about the 3DS, the 3D is hardly mentioned. Why? One, because the 3D added without taking away (the slider made it optional). Two, because they just started putting out lots of great games for it. Must buy games sold the system, and helped people stop thinking of it as a gimmick machine. People still mention the 3D in reviews and such, just to cover all the bases, but no game gets a bad score because it didn't implement the 3D well. And no game sells less because it didn't revolutionize 3D gaming. So now (most) people perceive the 3DS as just the next gen DS with loads of good games now and on the horizon. The 3D stopped being a gimmick and simply became an added feature. That's what needs to happen with the Wii U. Nintendo and others just need to pump out good, must have games. Easier said than done, I know, but that's the only solution. Then we'll see the controller and system really shine. More so than any system could have possibly done before. Definitely more so than the Wii could have ever done. Revolutionize? No, only a handful of titles will do that. Just simple, logical evolution. Which is just what we need, I think.
Will it happen, though? Well... who knows.